A typical satellite Internet system comprises subscriber terminals, a satellite, a ground station, and connectivity to the internet. Communication in such a system occurs along two paths: 1) a forward path comprising a path from the internet to the ground station to an uplink to the satellite to a downlink to the subscriber terminal; and 2) a return path comprising an uplink from a subscriber terminal to the satellite to a downlink to the ground station to the internet.
Conventionally, most satellites function as bent pipe satellites. In bent pipe satellite configurations, received uplink signals are amplified, translated to a downlink frequency, amplified again, and transmitted toward earth using a high-gain antenna. In such systems, mappings between user spot beams and gateway spot beams are typically fixed. A given uplink frequency band from a given user spot beam is translated into a given downlink frequency band of a given gateway spot beam, and similarly, a given uplink frequency band from a given gateway spot beam may be translated into a given downlink frequency band of a given user spot beam.